Help!!! Bubble Eye Goldfish Convulsions!!!

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smoses

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Apr 13, 2006
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Las Vegas, Nevada
My Goldfish is having problems....I have 2 Bubble Eye Goldfish and an Angelfish in a 44 gal established tank. One fish is having seizures. About a month ago he got a rock stuck in his mouth. We pulled him out and took it out. He recovered nicely from this. He began eating and was swiming being his friendly self, for about 2 weeks. Then he started swiming around spasticly for about 30 seconds and then fell belly up to the bottom. We watched him and he begain swiming around (looks like convultions) bumping into everything. We scooped him up and put him in a smaller feeder tank, (still in the original tank only seperated from the other fish) and began watching him. He would convulse and then fall upside down and just lay there. A couple time I thought he was dead. I would turn him over and he would lay at the bottom. He wont eat. It has been about 10 days now....he still convulses like crazy. I cannot get any answers from the pet shops and I cant find anything online. I did a 20 % waterchange about 2 months ago....The amonia tests say 0 amonia. The nitrate test says 0 nitrates. The water temp is 78 and ph is 76. What is going on??? What is wrong with this fish? The seisures he is going thru looks so sad. I was considering euthanizeing him. Somebody please help!!
 
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Bitsy

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Dec 3, 2005
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I don't know a whole lot about goldfish but I can tell you that they are cold water fish, angels are tropical fish and the two don't mix. 78* is wayyyy to warm for a goldfish and generally will cause unneeded stress. Try moving the angel fish to a different tank and lowering the temp for the goldfish, see if anything improves. Good luck
 

Hannys_Papa

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Aug 31, 2005
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Upstate NY
smoses said:
I did a 20 % waterchange about 2 months ago....The amonia tests say 0 amonia. The nitrate test says 0 nitrates.
??? 20% two months ago ?
What is your maintenance schedule ? How often and how much water do you change out ?
I have a hard time believing 0 nitrates are possible under these circumstances. Is this tank heavily planted ? Have you checked the nitrate kits expiration date ?
 

hurricanejedi

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Apr 4, 2005
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Maybe you meant nitrItes? Unless you have plants the nitrAtes would be higher.
 

smoses

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Apr 13, 2006
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Las Vegas, Nevada
I have only plastic plants.....I checked for a expiration date on the kit and there isnt one anywhere........I wonder if the kit is bad. I have had it for about 2 years.......I do have a bio filter in the tank along with a filter with carbon. I guess I was wrong earlier..it is not Nitratres at 0 it is Nitrite is at 0. What in the heck is the difference??? I am gonna do a water change and see if that helps......I had been changing the water 50% monthly and a friend told me that that was too much because the tank would fog up for a month untill it had recycled again. How much should I be changing this water???
smoses
 

Hannys_Papa

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Aug 31, 2005
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Upstate NY
I'd suggest reading the sticky on cycling or doing a forum/ google search on "nitrogen cycle".
Ammonia and nitrite are 2 toxic substances that are part of that cycle - nitrate is the "end product". Less toxic BUT if there aren't enough water changes it can build up over time to very dangerous levels.

Now if that has happened its important that you bring levels back to normal slowly - don't do a 50% change right away. Start by changeing out 5Gallons at a time - maybe 2-3 times a day. If you do too much at once you could send your fish into shock - going from very high nitrate (and other chemicals) levels to fairly low in a short ammount of time.
Then do maybe 2x 10Gallons the next day and finally you can start doing larger changes because now your tank water is closer to the tap water parameters.

A nitrate test kit would be good to have - to keep levels somewhere between 20-40ppm in the future.

And for the future - there is no such thing as too much water changes aslong as you do them regularely. I do 50% every week - some people do twice that. Fresh water is the best thing you can do for your fish.
 

smoses

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Apr 13, 2006
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Las Vegas, Nevada
Thanks, I will start with 5 gallon water changes 3 times today. And I will pick up another test kit. (one that has a nitrate test as well as the others). Any suggestions on a good test kit???
 

LunchBox

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Feb 7, 2006
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Kalamazoo, MI
I do 30% change every week. seems to kee pthe fish happy and my toxics low. I use the aquarium pharmaceuticals master freshwater test kit for most of my testing, although my nitrate test is either real touchy or it's bunk. for nitrates I use a tetratest nitrate kit.

so you say you had to take a rock out of its mouth? is it possible he ate a couple rocks and isn't able to pass them? that would make me go into convulsions if I had a rock stuck in my digestive tract. I have no idea how you'd deal with that if it is the problem, but I tohught I would mention it as a possibility.

good luck with your fish!
 

hurricanejedi

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Apr 4, 2005
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Raleigh, NC
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smoses said:
I have only plastic plants.....I checked for a expiration date on the kit and there isnt one anywhere........I wonder if the kit is bad. I have had it for about 2 years.......I do have a bio filter in the tank along with a filter with carbon. I guess I was wrong earlier..it is not Nitratres at 0 it is Nitrite is at 0. What in the heck is the difference??? I am gonna do a water change and see if that helps......I had been changing the water 50% monthly and a friend told me that that was too much because the tank would fog up for a month untill it had recycled again. How much should I be changing this water???
smoses
Since your beneficial bacteria live in the gravel and your filter, water changes won't hurt your cycle or cause a recycle. Many people think the bacteria live in the water and changing the water is bad, but it isn't true.

Ammonia and Nitrites at 0 is good, Nitrates at 0 is unusual unless you just changed your water.

Bacteria convert ammonia to nitrites. Then another group of bacteria convert nitrites to nitrates. The nitrates aren't toxic to the fish unless they are in extremely high levels. So thats an abreviated version of what happens in a cycle. Read the link on cycling and it will help you understand it much better :) .
 
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